Minnesota Now

An exhibition about the story of fear, hope, and elders in Black families is at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Minnesota-based artist and storyteller Jovan C. Speller created the multi-media installation. It’s called “Nurturing, and Other Rituals of Protection.” It’s a display of her Black familial experience, inspired in part by her grandmothers’ living rooms. The show is her first solo museum exhibition.

Severe weather over the past two weeks has taken the lives of two people in Kandiyohi and Nobles County. High wind gusts and tornados caused massive damage to buildings. That includes the MNyou Youth Garden in Willmar. That’s a a locally-supported agriculture initiative that hires youth in the community. In total there was $30 thousand in damage. Two of their veggie greenhouses were destroyed and if they don’t get rebuilt - nearly half of the farm’s crops will be lost.

So, owners Nate Erickson and Ben Larson have started a GoFundMe campaign. Cathy spoke with Nate and Ben about their efforts to recover the farm.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.

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It’s nearly June and while the temperatures are taking a dip - spring marches on.  Here to talk about the latest spring phenology is John Latimer. He’s a retired postal worker and full time observer of seasonal changes in northern Minnesota. He’s also leading groups of students around the state in noticing seasonal changes around them.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.

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Listen to the full show on Minnesota Now.

There are big questions about what happens next at the Minnesota Capitol today after lawmakers missed a deadline to pass a big tax cut and major spending bills. MPR News Political Editor, Mike Mulcahy, has more.

Fresh off a tour with internationally famous rapper and singer Pitbull, Lucia Sarmiento is back in the Twin Cities and ready to take the lead as a solo artist. Sarmiento joined host Cathy Wurzer to talk about her work in the local jazz scene and her upcoming album to be released this summer.

More than four hundred mental health workers at three Twin Cities hospitals will begin a 24 hour strike to protest dangerous working conditions and low wages. Kellie Benson is a senior mental health coordinator at Allina Abbott Northwestern hospital. She joined host Cathy Wurzer to talk more.

Sarah Souder Johnson is the co-founder and host of the Dissonance Sessions and a mental health therapist. She joined host Cathy Wurzer to talk more about her work.

A week after Minnesota Republicans held their state convention in Rochester, Democrats will be there for their convention. 

Unlike the Republicans, DFLers know who they will endorse. The party holds every statewide office in Minnesota, and the convention will endorse all of their reelection campaigns. 

But with inflation and gas prices up and President Joe Biden’s approval down, can Democrats hold on to those seats? And how do they intend to do it? 

Politics Friday host Mike Mulcahy talks with Minnesota DFL Party chairperson Ken Martin about the party’s prospects and strategy. Plus state Sen. Matt Klein joins to respond to the Republicans’ endorsement of Scott Jensen for governor.

We’ll hear the latest from Rochester and get an update on where things stand at the Capitol headed into the final weekend of the legislative session.   

Guests:

Experts are keeping an eye on two new subvariants of COVID-19 that have been found in Minnesota. New data from the state health department shows four people outside the metro area have been infected with BA.4 and one with BA.5 which had been found in other countries, and appears to be able to infect those who are supposed to have immunity from COVID.

COVID infections are increasing in Minnesota. Hospitalizations are also going up in the state as Wednesday 2,120 cases were reported. That total excludes home COVID tests. Michael Osterholm, veteran epidemiologist and the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, joined host Cathy Wurzer to share his insights.

The following transcript has been edited for length and clarity. You can listen to the full conversation using the audio player above.

In terms of the variant evolution, when we went from BA.2 to now BA.4 and BA.5, there was actually one in between, which is the primary variant causing illness right now in Minnesota, BA.2.12.1. It gets even more complicated. I think that in the long run, it's very likely that BA.4 and BA/5 will become very dominant subvariants here. And we have experience now in South Africa and Portugal to see that, in fact, these are very highly infectious variants.

Well, this is one of the challenges we have as you may recall, in all the times that we've talked about this virus there really are two aspects to its transmission and illness that are really critical. One, clearly BA.4 and .5 are more infectious subvariants than we've seen with the other omicron variants, so it likely will take over and dominate.

The second thing is it does evade immune protection you've had before. And in fact, in South Africa, they found that there was virtually no protection for those who had had BA.1 infection just six to 12 weeks ago from getting BA.4 BA/5.

What did provide the most protection was previous infection and being vaccinated. This is why the vaccines, while they're hardly perfect, are remarkable tools yet that will actually offer a substantial amount of protection against BA.4 and .5.

Even with this immune evasion, most of the illnesses we see are actually milder. We're not seeing anywhere near the hospitalizations we saw with the omicron wave for example, in South Africa, their peak was last week in terms of hospitalizations with 2,800, whereas they were at 9,900 during the omicron peak for hospitalization. We will see more transmission, but we're probably going to see most people having a milder type of illness.

Right now, we have the 5- to 11-year-old approval for two doses, only 29 percent of the kids are vaccinated, and this vaccine has been approved since November.

I don't think any of the booster dose data for 5- to 11-year-olds is going to have much impact because we can't get kids vaccinated with even one or two doses.

As far as the younger kids, I think you're going to see exactly the same kind of phenomena. Should the FDA approve the vaccine for younger than age 5 — the data we have right now suggests that they're going to wait. It is still a huge challenge in terms of getting our kids vaccinated. Converting a vaccine into a vaccination is really difficult in this age group.

You know, probably the three most important words that I've learned to say and said with a heartfelt meaning: I don't know.

At this point, we could see the ongoing unfolding of COVID with this particular variant and all the subvariants that we're seeing. And maybe over time, we would just have a whole series of you get infected, get protection for a while, then you're vulnerable again. What I really am concerned about is that omicron won't be the last new variant. Meaning an entire new type of SARS-CoV-2 virus emerges pi or sigma, one of the other Greek letters that will denote a new variant. Those could actually be 210 mph curveballs, they could be much more infectious, or they could surely evade immune protection.

We could see another omicron like moment in the days to months ahead, we don't know. And I think the public, however, has decided that it's done with the virus. I can't emphasize enough, the virus is not done with us yet, as tired as we all are. And I know you and I are very tired of this virus. But the bottom line is that we just don't know what the future is going to bring us.

Well, unfortunately, I have spent many, many hours in the past several weeks just trying to assist friends and colleagues, who absolutely should receive the drug who are infected, who have a confirmed test, who have had terrible problems securing it.

We even had one very large medical center in this state that I got involved with, because the nurses line for people who called in who said, ‘I've been infected, I have a positive test. What do I do?’ The nurses were instructed tell him ‘well, unless you're seriously ill, we'll treat you.’ Which is absolutely the wrong answer. And you know, through the some intervention, the medical center changed its messaging to say ‘no, this drug is for you at the earliest stages of infection to take so you don't get seriously ill.’ But the fact that there was that much misinformation out there, and the availability of the drug is really spotty. I know people who have gone to 10 or 15 different pharmacies to try to find the drug.

We have a lot of work yet to do on on the aspect of getting people on this drug. You're hearing about some breakthrough infections where people end up having illness after they take the drug — yes, that's true — but it is doing an amazing job of keeping people out of hospitals, and getting seriously ill, if they can get it.

Well, we first of all have to acknowledge that we have a problem. It has to start at the local level to figure out who has access to these drugs, how do they get them, how do streamline the process. One of the challenges we're having right now is that we've seen counties and states across the country pulling back on testing and not making a PCR testing available so that people can actually get a confirmed test.

Some places will actually take the lateral flow test as evidence. But the problem with those lateral flow tests, the at home test, is that they're often not positive in the first three to five days of illness. That is a challenge because you have to have the drug within five days of your first symptoms to be eligible to receive it.

One of the concerns I have right now about the COVID-19 vaccine picture is that we're putting a lot of eggs in the basket of a omicron subvariant vaccine. But one of the challenges we have is if a new variant emerges, the sub-omicron type variant may very well not be the right one to have for the vaccine.

The vaccine we currently have right now is from the ancestral strain in Wuhan. It covered alpha, beta, gamma, delta and omicron to the extent so in the end it still may be the best vaccine.

I fully expect that we're going to see a lot of additional cases. In the last seven to 10 days, I'm aware of more people, friends, colleagues, who are infected with this virus in any subjective 10 day period in the entire pandemic. It's remarkable.

What we're looking is what will happen with hospitalization, serious illnesses and death. I do believe that they will still be somewhat moderate and we won't see big increases there.

We're just going to have to keep moving forward and knowing that this virus is going to continue to throw curveballs at us and we have to be prepared for that.